The battle began in 1997, when Yousoufian requested documents from the King County government on the then-proposed Seahawks Stadium. After King County officials denied the request, Yousoufian sued under Washington’s Public Disclosure Act (PDA). In 2001, the King County Superior Court ruled in his favor and ordered the county to pay $100,000 in fines. Unfortunately, this amount did not come close to covering the $330,000 in legal fees Yousoufian had incurred.

Washington's PDA allows assessment of penalties ranging from $5 to $100 per day for every day documents are withheld. The original ruling had used the minimum of $5 per day. At last week’s hearing, Yousoufian's attorneys argued the penalty should be raised to $90 per day, for a total of more than $742,000, in addition to lawyer fees. In its counterargument, the county acknowledged that the minimum penalty was too low but sought to raise it to only $10 a day and less than half the attorneys' fees. Judge Hayden is expected to issue a written ruling by the end of the month.

Fee recovery is a critical component of any effective public disclosure law. Without it citizens unfairly denied requested documents would often be unable or unwilling to take on the uncompensated financial burden of battling the government in court. Recognizing this, Sens. John Cornyn (R-TX) and Patrick Leahy (D-VT) included in their Openness Promotes Effectiveness in our National (OPEN) Government Act (S. 394), a provision that would allow the public to more easily recoup legal costs from the federal government for improperly withheld documents. The bill currently has five cosponsors, while the House version of the bill (HR 867) has 20 cosponsors.